The Aquarian (Winnipeg)
June 2006
http://www.aquarianonline.com/Values/eggsposure.htm
INDECENT EGGSPOSURE:
How Eggs are Laid in Canada
By SYD BAUMEL
It looks like news-at-six
video of a puppy mill
bust. Except the filthy,
neglected animals are
hens, and the setting is a
modern
industrial-strength egg
barn near Guelph, Ontario.
The camera sweeps across a
long aisle lined high
on both sides with
"batteries" (stacks) of wire
cages, then slowly pans
across a single tier. The
hens inside are packed so
tight they can barely
move.
They are a pathetic sight.
Where there should be
ivory-white feathers,
there are spiky quills and
tattered grey coats. The
birds in the lower tiers
are caked with feces from
the cages above. Below
the towers of cages, a
displaced hen squats
helplessly on a manure
pile. Another lies dead in
the aisle. Everything is
cloaked in filth.
"This is a life sentence
with no parole. Their
only escape is slaughter,"
say the video's
closing titles.
Viewable
<http://humanefood.ca/Truth.html>on the
website of the Canadian
Coalition for Farm
Animals (CCFA), "The Truth
About Canada's Egg
Industry" is produced by
CCFA and the Vancouver
Humane Society (VHS). The
grainy footage was shot
by an anonymous University
of Guelph biology
student who snuck into the
barn last summer and
broke the story in his
student newspaper. In
October, a media blitz by
CCFA and VHS briefly
brought the story to
national attention.
Animal scientists and
veterinarians
<http://humanefood.ca/battery-expert.html>quoted
on CCFA's website are
appalled by the footage.
Mohan Raj, a prominent
poultry scientist at the
University of Bristol,
expressed shock that such
"extreme cruelty to layer
hens" could exist in
Canada.
"Considering the fact that
birds appear to be
featherless and fecal
ammonia is an irritant and
it can burn the skin, I
would consider this as a
serious welfare problem,"
Raj wrote. "The dead
bird in the aisle could
have escaped from the
cage and, after prolonged
suffering, died due to
deprivation of food and
water."
Debra Probert, Executive
Director of VHS, says
the video, like similar
shockers shot south of
the border, should be a
wake-up call for
Canadians.
"Government and industry
are constantly
reassuring consumers that
things are better for
farm animals here in
Canada," she tells Canadian
Press (CP) in October. "We
have long suspected
that's not the case and
now we have the proof -
this footage shows filthy,
disgusting, hideously
abusive
conditions."
Particularly disturbing is
the pedigree of the
farm. The owner, Lloyd
Weber, is a veterinarian
and a member of the Dean's
Veterinary Advisory
Council of the University
of Guelph, one of
Canada's foremost
agricultural colleges. His
barn, LEL Farms, is a tour
site for agriculture
students. "It's difficult
not to speculate that
if this farm, with such
esteemed connections, is
so bad, what are other
farms like across Canada?"
the VHS
<http://www.vancouverhumanesociety.bc.ca/Newsletter/Fall2005.pdf>comments
in its newsletter. "We
have no reason to believe
this is not the
norm."
Weber and the egg industry
defend themselves in
national news stories.
Conceding that a dead bird
may have been left in an
aisle, the veterinarian
insists he lives up to the
closest thing Canada
has to laws governing how
farmers should treat
their animals: the
Canadian Agri-food Research
Council's Recommended
Codes of Practice. "The
[stocking] density
does meet the [Code's]
guidelines for housing
birds in cages," he tells
CP. An Ontario Egg
Producers spokesperson tells
CP: "We encourage
producers to live up [to the
codes]. A happy hen is
a producing hen."
Ian Duncan, an
internationally respected poultry
welfare scientist at the
Univeristy of Guelph,
tells CP: "The egg-laying
sector of the poultry
industry, has become too
intensified. It is time
for change. The general
public needs to think if
it wants to go on with
its demand for extremely
cheap food or [be]
prepared to pay a little
more for more humanely
produced
food.''
Code of Practice or
License to Abuse?
The bitter irony for
Canada's 26 million
egg-laying hens (three
million in Manitoba), 98
percent of whom live in
large battery-cage
operations like Weber's
averaging over 17,000
hens per barn, is that
Weber's self-defense is
probably valid.
"The LEL farm is not that
different from other
battery hen farms. Pretty
much status quo,"
according to Stephanie
Brown, a director of CCFA.
"Might be a tad dirtier,
and the cages are old,
but it's battery-hen
reality."
Brown is a former
president of the Canadian
Federation of Humane
Societies, the only animal
welfare organization ever
permitted by the
Canadian Agri-Food
Research Council (CARC) to
participate in formulating
the Recommended Codes
of Practice. CARC is an
NGO funded by government
and industry and comprised
mostly of
representatives of the
regulated industries
themselves (50 percent),
government and academia.
There is little about the
conditions at LEL Farms
that would run afoul of
those Codes (which can be
read on the
<http://www.carc-crac.ca/english/codes_of_practice/index.htm>CARC
website). In Ontario,
where the Codes'
recommendations for
treatment of animals on the
farm are just that –
recommendations – as they
are in every province
except New Brunswick,
Prince Edward Island and
Manitoba, no charges
have been laid against LEL
Farms. However,
according to Brown, Weber
has stopped inviting
agriculture students to
tour his facility – on
the advice of the
<http://www.ofac.org/>Ontario
Farm Animal Council, an
industry public relations
organization.
The primary Code for
Canada's 1000+ registered
egg producers (producers
who have 500 or more
hens – almost all the
hens in Canada) is the 2003
<http://www.carc-crac.ca/common/Code
of Practice
- Polutry Layer
English.pdf>Recommended Code of
Practice for the Care and
Handling of Pullets,
Layers and Spent Fowl. It
gives producers the
green light to house their
hens in wire-mesh
battery cages with no
litter on the bare floors
and just 67 square inches
per four-pound bird.
Look down at the outspread
pages of The Aquarian,
22 inches by 15.5 (341
square inches). The Code
would allow you to house
five hens on that area,
day-in, day-out, until
their egg production wanes
- typically 12 months -
and then kill them.
Because chronically
overcrowded, stressed-out
chickens - especially the
genetically high-strung
White Leghorns that lay
most of the industrial
world's white eggs, and at
three times the rate
of their ancestors - can
easily peck each other
to death, the Code allows
egg producers to cut
off the pointy, nerve-rich
ends of their beaks
("debeaking"), without
anesthetic or painkillers.
Some leading poultry
scientists, including Ian
Duncan, believe the
mutilated birds suffer
"phantom limb pain" for
the rest of their lives.
Regardless, for a chicken,
losing its beak is
like losing a right hand
for a human. And they
still peck each other
anyway: pulling out
feathers and exposing bare
skin to infections and
ammonia burns from the
barn's abundant chicken
waste.
The Code's acceptance of
the now universal
battery cage production
system, first introduced
in the 1940s, perpetuates
what poultry scientists
and bioethicists commonly
regard as an animal
welfare disaster. As
American philosopher and
animal scientist Bernard
Rollin summarizes the
problem: "Virtually all
aspects of hen behavior
are thwarted by battery
cages: social behavior,
nesting behavior, the
ability to move and flap
wings, dustbathing, space
requirements,
scratching for food,
exercise, pecking at objects
on the ground."
According to the experts,
battery caged hens pay
a serious price for such
major deprivations as:
Not being able to fully
stretch or flap their
wings. The average hen
needs 144 square inches to
stretch her wings; 303 to
flap them. The Code
gives her 67. She will try
to flap her wings
anyway. Temple Grandin, a
renowned farm animal
welfare scientist,
<http://www.grandin.com/welfare/corporation.agents.html>described
the consequences she
witnessed at a large battery
egg operation: "When I
visited a large egg layer
operation and saw old hens
that had reached the
end of their productive
life, I was horrified.
Egg layers bred for
maximum egg production and
the most efficient feed
conversion were nervous
wrecks that had beaten off
half their feathers by
constant flapping against
the cage."
* Not being able to build
and lay their
eggs in a nest. "The worst
torture to which a
battery hen is exposed is
the inability to retire
somewhere for the laying
act," Konrad Lorenz. the
Nobel prize-winning father
of ethology wrote in
1980. "For the person who
knows something about
animals, it is truly
heartrending to watch how a
chicken tries again and
again to crawl beneath
her fellow cagemates to
search there in vain for
cover." Laying her eggs on
a sloping wire-mesh
floor surrounded by five
or six other nervous
hens is so disturbing that
the hen appears to
hold her egg in as long as
she can bear. She must
relive this ordeal every
30 hours.
* Not being able to perch
and roost above
ground. Perching above
ground and roosting in the
shelter of a tree are a
fixtures of the chicken's
natural repertoire and
exercise routine. Entire
flocks roost together at
night to stay clear of
predators. Neither
perching nor normal exercise
are possible in a battery
cage, which is so low
the birds can't even adopt
their standing alert
posture. According to
Scottish poultry scientist,
Michael Baxter, "The fact
that hens are
restricted from exercising
to such an extent that
they are unable to
maintain the strength of their
bones is probably the
greatest single indictment
of the battery cage. The
increased incidence of
bone breakage which
results is a serious welfare
insult." Those broken
bones are never treated.
Neither is the
osteoporosis that gradually
consumes most battery
hens.
* Not being able to
establish a pecking
order. According to
Baxter: "When crowded
together this regulatory
system [pecking order]
breaks down and the hens
appear to be in a
chronic state of social
stress, perpetually
trying to get away from
their cagemates, not able
to express dominance
relations by means of
spacing and not even able
to resolve social
conflict by means of
aggression."
Battering Battery Cages
<http://www.aquarianonline.com/Values/eggsposure_experts.htm>more
of what the scientists
say
Inhumanity in the egg
industry begins in the
hatchery. Layer chickens
are bred to produce
eggs, not flesh. The male
chicks – seven million
a year in Manitoba alone
– are nothing but a
garbage disposal problem.
The humane solution
favoured by the Code is to
feed them, live, into
a high-speed macerator
(grinder) – the industrial
equivalent of a kitchen
garburator.
The female chicks may
legally meet the same fate
after their year of
service. “To my knowledge,”
Penny Kelly, General
Manager of
<http://www.mbegg.mb.ca/>Manitoba
Egg Producers,
informs me, "several
high-speed macerators are in
use locally."
"I have very serious
welfare concerns," writes
British poultry scientist
Mohan Raj in an email
correspondence. "Adult
poultry can fly (are you
surprised?). Therefore,
some birds may try to
escape from being
macerated while their legs are
caught between the blades
of the macerator
leading to severe pain and
suffering. I will
leave this scenario for
your imagination."
Who's Minding the Hens?
Click here for conclusion:
<http://www.aquarianonline.com/Values/eggsposure2.htm>;
Aquarian co-editor Syd
Baumel is a known animal
rights activist with close
ties to the Canadian
Coalition for Farm
Animals, AnimalWatch Manitoba,
the Winnipeg Vegetarian
Association, Eatkind.net
and the Winnipeg Humane
Society.
Where to buy kinder eggs
in Manitoba
(to find sources
elsewhere, visit
<http://eatkind.net>eatkind.net)
<http://www.aquarianonline.com/guide.htm>The
Aquarian's Ethical Food Market
Don't forget to read part
two of this article at
http://www.aquarianonline.com/Values/eggsposure2.htm
and Syd's correspondence
with government and
industry officials linked
therein.
Learn More
<http://humanefood.ca/eggindustry.html>The
Truth
About Canada's Egg
Industry (Canadian Coalition
for Farm
Animals)
<http://chickenout.ca/>Chickenout.ca
(Vancouver Humane Society)
Canadian Agri-Food
Research Council's
<http://www.carc-crac.ca/common/Code
of Practice
- Polutry Layer
English.pdf>Recommended Code of
Practice for the Care and
Handling of Pullets,
Layers and Spent
Fowl
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© 2006 The Aquarian.
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Manitoba, Canada, R2M 1Y2
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